The international legal framework for the management of the global oceans social-ecological system |
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| Institution: | 1. Environmental Science & Management, Portland State University, PO Box 751, Portland, OR 97207, United States;2. Sociology, Portland State University, PO Box 751, Portland, OR 97207, United States;3. US EPA, Office of Research and Development, Western Ecology Division, Corvallis, OR 97330, United States;1. Institute for Sustainable Development and International relations (IDDRI), 27 rue Saint-Guillaume, 75337 Paris Cedex 07, France;2. Currently Commonwealth Secretariat, Previously Institute for Advanced Sustainability Studies (IASS);3. International Union for the Conservation of Nature (IUCN);4. Globelaw;1. Fenner School of Environment and Society, Australian National University, Canberra 2600, ACT, Australia;2. CSIRO Oceans and Atmosphere Flagship, Hobart 7001, TAS, Australia;3. CSIRO Land and Water Flagship, Based at James Cook University, Townsville 4811, QLD, Australia;1. Stockholm Resilience Centre, Stockholm University, Stockholm, Sweden;2. Marine Geospatial Ecology Lab, Nicholas School of the Environment, Duke University, Durham, NC, USA;3. Walther Schücking Institute for International Law, University of Kiel, Kiel, Germany;4. Netherlands Institute for the Law of the Sea, Utrecht University, Utrecht, Netherlands;5. K.J Jebsen Centre for the Law of the Sea, University of Tromsø, Tromsø, Norway;6. Nereus Program, Fisheries Centre, University of British Columbia, BC, Canada |
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| Abstract: | This paper evaluates the international agreements in place for the protection of the environment and the regulation of human activities taking place in world's oceans and seas. 500 multilateral agreements were reviewed against a framework of reference, grounded on the theoretical approaches of Adaptive Management and Transition Management. According to this framework, oceans complex systems management should: (1) consider the global oceans as a Social-Ecological System (SES); (2) aim to achieve or maintain their ecological resilience; and (3) implement iterative, learning-based management strategies, supported by science-based advice to policy and management. The results show that the present international legal framework for the global oceans does not require countries to adopt an adaptive, complex systems approach for global oceans ecological resilience. Instead, this study supports the perspective of a double fragmentation among international agreements. First, global agreements focus on issue-based objectives for determined human activities, ecological components or anthropogenic pressures. Second, regional agreements have a wider scope, but also a varying level of inclusion of ecological resilience considerations. There is the need to foster the inclusion of such an approach into existing and future international agreements and their implementation, including through soft-law, project-based initiatives at global and regional scales. |
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| Keywords: | International law Social-ecological systems Ecological resilience Oceans UNCLOS |
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